Church in a State

The Times
July 11, 2017

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/church-in-a-state-bz8hgq770

Where once the Catholic hierarchy held an iron grip over Irish society, now it has a fight to prove that it has not become utterly irrelevant

On Saturday, Diarmuid Martin, the archbishop of Dublin, delivered a thoughtful speech on the status of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

He told a conference in Germany that Catholic leaders had failed to recognise and respond to the secularisation of Irish society, warning that there was “a growing number of vocal supporters” seeking “a more hostile” separation of church and state.

Dr Martin’s remarks were unsurprising, given the increasing level of discord between the religious hierarchy and the government over a wide range of issues, the most recent being the national furore over the proposed involvement of the Sisters of Charity in the ownership of the National Maternity Hospital.

Dr Martin also said that challenging Catholic values was no longer “politically risky” and there were “few votes to be won through being too closely linked with church issues”. This may seem like a simple statement, but it was an acknowledgement that the iron fist of the church has been almost entirely prised from the levers of power in Ireland.

Religion has historically played a huge role in Irish life since the foundation of the state. Monsignor — later archbishop — John Charles McQuaid was one of the key figures involved in drafting the Constitution of Ireland, and Vatican officials were consulted about the document. To be fair, Eamon de Valera did resist the demand that Catholicism should be recognised as the state religion. Instead he recognised its “special position” in Article 44, a position that remained until the passing of a referendum in 1972.